


Not well

by ununpentium



Series: Not Well [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, M/M, Mental Illness, Self Harm, psychiatric hospital
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-10-11
Updated: 2011-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-24 12:44:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ununpentium/pseuds/ununpentium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is not well. Mycroft and John think he needs an assessment in a psychiatric hospital.</p><p>Follows on from Diagnostic Criteria</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not well

**Author's Note:**

> This follows on from Diagnostic Criteria.
> 
> As the chapters get going there will be some real scenarios of life in a psychiatric hospital mixed in- all identifying features will be changed and some aspects dramatised.

“It’s for your own good Sherlock.”

“Fuck off Mycroft.” I grumbled into the sofa.

He was standing in the corner of the living room twirling that fucking umbrella. John was standing awkwardly next to him, an apologetic look on his face.

“You’re not-“

“DON’T finish that sentence,” I growled, “don’t you _dare_ tell me I’m ‘not well’.” I sat up straight, glaring at Mycroft. He had not moved an inch, whereas John was now pacing anxiously.

“I am perfectly fine! Tell him John. We just solved a case yesterday, didn’t we?” I was trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. John would make this okay, John would help me; tell Mycroft that everything was fine and his “help” was not needed.

“Uh, well, yes I suppose we did solve the case yesterday,” John shuffled as he spoke to his shoes, “but I wouldn’t exactly say you were fine, Sherlock.” He raised his head to look me in the eyes. I could drown in his eyes, or lose myself. Or both. I looked away.

“You’ve been acting like you’re trapped in that head of yours,” John  continued, “you’ve been buying things left right and centre, things you don’t need, and I’ve seen scars, Sherlock.”

I pressed my face into my hands. I couldn’t bear hearing John say those words. He wasn’t talking about me, he wasn’t talking about me, he wasn’t talking about me.

“I admit I’ve been slightly extravagant, but that’s hardly cause for concern; as for the scars- you know how dangerous my line of work is. Stop jumping to conclusions, John.”

“Sherlock, we both know John is not jumping to conclusions. He lives with you; he has seen first-hand what your behaviour is like. He is a medical professional and he knows when something is amiss.” Mycroft now had a pained expression on his face, though I expect that expression wasn’t out of brotherly concern but more over how it will look to his peers to have an unstable brother.

Nothing that he was suggesting is news to me. It has been suggested time and time again that there is something _wrong_ with me, that I am ill, or a freak, or a psychopath. Unbalanced. Unstable. Unhinged.  I did my own research and I know what a psychiatrist would diagnose, _Borderline Personality Disorder_ , and for that reason I stay as far away as possible from anyone with that power. And as for anyone who instinctively knows there is not something right about me, I throw out my spiel about being a high functioning sociopath. It keeps everyone at arm’s length and more importantly they leave me the hell alone.

And now John was seeing through that carefully constructed façade of hiding a personality disorder behind another one. I’m not any more of a sociopath than he is, and he knows it. It was stupid to think I could hide this from a doctor, but I had these silly notions of hiding in plain sight.

“Sherlock, I think you need to have an assessment, let the doctors find out how they can help you.” Every word John said stabbed into my heart; into my brain, curling around my lungs and squeezing the air out of them. He was betraying me, my John was betraying me. Why? Why John, why?

I threw myself back down onto the sofa, letting my head hit the armrest.

“I disagree.”

I was heading into dangerous territory. I knew that Mycroft agreed with John and would stop at nothing to force my hand into agreeing to have an assessment, or even taking action to have me sectioned and assessed against my will. Pushing him into this course of action would not be a good idea.

Mycroft sighed and tapped his umbrella against the floor.

“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. I’m sure you know what the hard way entails, hm?” He quirked an eyebrow. I wanted to punch him in the face.

John came over and tentatively sat on the armrest of the sofa, stroking his hand through my hair.

“Please, Sherlock. If you won’t do this for yourself, then do it for me? You’ll be home really soon, just co-operate and do what they say and then you can come home.”

I peered up at him.

“John, please, John, don’t make me do this. _Please_ ,” I whispered. I knew where they had in mind. This wouldn’t be half an hour in a therapist's chair, they wanted to have me assessed as an inpatient at a psychiatric unit, somewhere I would be monitored twenty four hours a day. _Observed_. That was the ultimate insult, to have people using my skills against me. Well, nothing close to my level of observation, of course, but the point still stands.

My right hand itched. I scratched it unconsciously and John grabbed it between his hands and turned it over; his fingers tracing over the raw scratch marks that I had left. He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it lightly.

“I promise you that I will be with you every step of the way. I told you I would never leave you. I love you Sherlock, but God, it hurts me to see you like this. I come home from work and you’re still lying on the sofa and I know you’ve been there all day, locked inside your head. You cry in your sleep, did you know that?”

My chest tightened. I felt betrayed by my body, by the fact that when I was asleep I had no control over what I did.

John’s eyes filled with tears, though he held his composure.

“I can’t watch you do this to yourself any more. I’ve seen the scars; I’m not as stupid as you think.”

I shook my head vehemently.

“No, no no no, John, you’re not stupid, I never-“

“It’s alright Sherlock. I know. But you need to let me take you now, okay?”

John promised me that everything would be okay. I could trust him, couldn’t I? I could do this, it would be a few days and then I would be back home with my John. I would get to the unit and act normally; they would find nothing wrong and let me go. It was simple.

“Okay. Just let me pack some things first?” I jumped up and headed towards our room, mentally locating the items I was planning on taking with me. John moved in front of me, barring my way.

“Not so fast. I’m coming with you to help you pack.”

Anger was bubbling up inside me. No, this was John, I can’t get angry with John. I mustn’t.

“I don’t need help packing, I’m not five years old.”

John sighed.

“I’m just making sure you don’t bring anything inappropriate to the hospital.”

“Please. Even I know you can’t bring sulphuric acid into a psychiatric hospital.” I smiled, trying to turn it into a joke. John could not enter the bedroom with me; he could not supervise me packing. My heart was pounding in my chest and my focus of vision had narrowed dramatically.

“Alright, I’ll tell Mycroft we’re about to leave and that I’ll update him later. No packing the skull either!”

I slumped back against the doorframe, breathing hard. As soon as John’s back was turned I darted into my room, reached under my bed, removed a loose floorboard and pulled out my cigar box. I tried to hide it somewhere different every time I used what was hidden inside and so far I was confident John had never located it, though he had come close. I flipped off the back cover of my blackberry and secreted a couple of the razor blades underneath the battery and then replaced the cover. I then hid a blade in the sole of my shoe, arranged so that I would treat flat on it and not injure myself as I walked. I knew that this would be discovered straight away, but that once I had been suitably chastised for attempting to bring in contraband and half-heartedly searched; they would find nothing else and be satisfied that they had found everything there was to find. If I were to appear not to have hidden any contraband at all then John would be suspicious.

I had finished packing a few changes of clothes, underwear and toiletries as John entered.

“Mycroft’s gone, I assured him that I would get you there okay. Are you nearly done? Do you want a book or something to keep you occupied?”

“That would be lovely, John.”

“Okay well you can borrow some of my paperbacks, I’m not having you take in any forensics journals, and I’ll put my mp3 player in too in case you wanted to listen to some music.”

My heart ached at the way john called his iPod touch an ‘mp3 player’. He silently gathered together all of the things he thought would be of comfort to me, including an old jumper of his, put them into my small case and shut the lid.

He smiled softly at me and held out his arm.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”


End file.
